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He just stands there, like he’s allowing me to look. I guess he is, and I still have his towel in one hand, which I’m only realizing right now. We both know curiosity drew me in here. I wasn’t planning on a big seduction scene. He’d laugh at my naïveté.

Not that I’m going to try and seduce him. I don’t want to do anything more than we need to make this marriage real. I’ve gone from one monster’s cage to another. I never really thought of home as a cage and Dad as a monster in quite those terms, but the fact that I can witness heinous acts of violence in stride, like Callahan said, makes me believe it’s the case.

I’m twenty-one, an adult. So getting trapped into this arranged, contractual marriage is laughable. I should have been able to walk away. Yet I didn’t.

Because that would have been impossible. Viviana knew she couldn’t talk her way out of a marriage or flat-out refuse, so she disappeared. And a part of me subconsciously knew I couldn’t defy my father, either.

And now, here I am, curious about my prison master.

The tattoos look tribal, Celtic, reminding me of ancient warriors. They’re beautiful, some depicting a language I can’t read.

I point now at his left arm, the tattoo a stream of writing. “That?”

His smile’s soft and it causes a small quake in my heart. “Some words of Brendan Behan, in Gaelic. He was an activist, went to prison for refusing to turn on his IRA brothers, and was also a renowned writer—a poet and playwright.”

“What does it say?”

“This and that.”

“A lot of words for this and that.”

“Christ, Joy. It’s the poem,The Laughing Boy. And some other shit. I was young. They’re just tattoos.”

But they’re not. I can tell from the glint in his eye. And while he has a charm and an air of flippancy about him when he wants, I don’t think he does anything without meaning to.

I don’t move. I should, but I can’t. He’s tall, muscular, and glorious. All of him. The dark curling hair’s now blacker and slicked back by his hand. Those indigo blue eyes are mesmerizing, and his mouth…

A frisson of excitement rushes through me as I note he’s starting to get a shadow on his jaw, which means, though he shaved for our ridiculous wedding, he’s growing back his scruff. I don’t know why it delights me, but it does.

“Joy, either get on your fucking knees and suck my cock, or get the fuck out of the bathroom,” he says, tone low, full of inky-black promises. I don’t think he threatens. He means it all. “Because things are starting to rise.”

I drop my gaze again. And like I’m in a dream, I go closer, putting my hands on his wet flesh, stroking over his nipples, over the little dumbbells that pierce them. They’re cool but getting warm as he starts to heat. I touch his damp hair. It’s also cool beneath my fingertips.

“Did you have a cold shower?”

“What the fuck are you doing, Lucie Joy?”

“Touching. We’re married.”

Never in my life have I had the courage to do this. Or the opportunity. Except, I guess, for what’s his name, but I was younger and I didn’t want to. Now… I want to.

He’s going to take me. He told me that. He says he owns me, and the ring on my fingersays that, too.

My father sold me.

For more power, more money. For access to what Callahan can give him. And maybe the protection, too. I don’t know. I don’t know the world beyond the basics.

And I wasn’t even sold as a prize possession. I was the lame horse, and apparently, my father had to throw in a few extra bags of gold to sweeten the deal. Gold, sex club, the same thing. I know this because I heard him and his higher-ups talking about it.

“Touching has consequences.”

“Everything,” I say, “has consequences.”

I drop my hand and run it against his cock. It’s hot, and it jumps and swells, and I snatch my hand back, suddenly realizing what I’m doing, the fire I’m playing with.

“You knew it was me you were marrying, that’s why you wanted it masked, didn’t you? The party? You wanted to hide your identity from me for as long as possible.”

He takes my hand and forces me to wrap it around his cock. It feels like silk and steel, and the metal bars that pierce it make my pussy swell—what does all this feel like? I shiver as heat burns deep in my blood.